Release of the evils
by Mandolina Lightrobber
Summary: This is the night when they went free.


**A/N:** Written for a LiveJournal _30 nights_ community challenge using the prompt _025 – release of the evils_. Has not been beta-read and I doubt it will ever be, as I have given up on looking for betas. They all disappear into thin air soon after they agree to work with me. So there might be odd grammar every now and then. If you're willing, please offer your help in fixing any grammar errors that you can find. I would love you forever.

**Warnings:** Some violence and mildly disturbing imagery.

**Disclaimer:** Final Fantasy VII and all related titles belong to Square Enix. This story was written for non-profit entertainment purposes and I claim no ownership of the characters.

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** Release of the evils.**

It was the night when they escaped. A time of darkness filled with cold wind and driving rain, though they had not known of it at the beginning of their routine experiments, performed in the biggest secrecy by the most capable of the Planet's scientists. The three brothers had seen a small chance and had not hesitated to seize it.

The scientists liked to run tests on them while the three of them were in adjoined rooms, separated only by a layer of glass with cleverly placed speakers so that they could hear each other scream. Studying their physical reactions as well as their emotional ones was something the doctors had decided early on. They liked to see the extents of damage they could inflict on these impossible beings, who, by all right, should not even exist.

Still slightly sedated and weaponless, Loz had charged at one of the new lab workers who had failed to pull his straps tight enough. The new guy had not known how much strength the muscular clone had in him and his misjudgement cost him his life, making him the first victim of a long list. Using his only free hand at the time, Loz snapped the young man's neck and showed his limp body at the bulky older and more experienced guard that tried to charge at him, stalling him. This gave him enough time to free his other hand and peel off the straps on his legs with little struggle. After that, Loz killed one guard with his bare hands and the oncoming three – with the first one's weapon that he picked off of the floor.

Using the diversion his brother had created in the next room, Yazoo – who, at the time, had not yet been strapped down to an examination table – used the loop in the guards and doctors' attention, wrenched himself free from the guard's hold, grabbed a scalpel from the nearby cart and slit a few throats. Starting with the guard that had been holding him and who had tried to restrain him once again, and ending with the doctor's assistant. He showed no sympathy or mercy, doing only the things they would not have done to him for a few months still. By the time the third body fell to the floor, someone had pushed the alarm button and howling sirens and flickering lights filled the building.

Disoriented for the moment by the sound and light, Yazoo stumbled backwards and leaned on the metal table he would have been strapped to by now if not for Loz. Out of the corner of his eye, Yazoo could see somebody make a move towards him, a syringe in hand and he doubted for a a moment that he could fight back, though he knew that he had to. Metal shutters were being lowered on the glass windows all around the room and somebody in the next room barked the command for Kadaj to be taken away to his cell. The youngest of the three clones was also the worst off at the moment. He had not yet fully recovered from the previous streak of vicious experiments and he could not put up much of a fight.

The sound of shattering glass was lost in the howling sirens, but the metal table that flew in through the broken window could not be ignored. Neither was the next thing that came through the opening – the dead body of a guard, with Loz following suit. Bruised, but more sober than Yazoo at the moment, he charged at the closest man. Yazoo could not help him much at the moment, having been recaptured again by a guard that had rushed in from the outside and overtaken him from behind during his moment of disorientation. He was down on the table, the strap that was meant to go around his wrist wound tightly around his neck, making him choke. The lab assistant had managed to inject him with something and the sedative was taking effect quite rapidly.

Yazoo gnashed his teeth in helpless rage. What had they done to him? The middle brother pulled himself together, fighting against the medication in his veins that made everything cloudy and light around him. At the back of his mind he knew that this might be their only chance and that it should not, by any means, go to waste for there would never be another. If they died here, that would be just as well. Anything to no longer exist in this facility; kept as test subjects and not treated like human beings.

It turned out that he did not need to do much because both the guard and the assistant were pulled away from him by Loz who had gone into a fighting craze. All it took for the oldest one was a little taste of blood, and he was unstoppable. By the time both remaining people in this room fell, Yazoo had somewhat recovered and had managed to cut the strap with the scalpel he still gripped tightly. For a moment he remained leaning on the table, breathing heavily and glaring at the metal wall that now separated them from their youngest brother. While Loz turned to the enforced window and attempted to break it, Yazoo stooped down and searched the pockets of the corpses. He rightly guessed that Kadaj was no longer in that room and was, therefore, more interested in obtaining the key cards that opened the door. Only half-paying attention to Loz's angry shouts and curses at the unyielding metal, Yazoo informed him of his further plans and advised him to pick up as many stunner guns as he could. And though Loz insisted that he needed no weapons, using this chance to crack his knuckles and brag about the swiftness of his kills, he accepted the gun his brother tossed at him.

Before Yazoo could use any of the code cards that he had obtained, the door to the laboratory slid open and a group of guards charged inside in pairs. Yazoo made a quick job of the first two, using the scalpels that were nearby and got to his feet to move in after Loz leapt into action, dealing punches and kicks all around. Through the guards they made their way in the direction Kadaj was usually taken and Yazoo used the code card to get through the sealed door, smashing the panel afterwards to stall their followers. They got through two doors this way and always there would be a party of heavily-armed guards to meet them on the other side. Yazoo had mostly recovered from his daze by this time, the adrenaline and survival instinct doing wonders against the sedative, and he could think a few steps ahead. Thus, when they reached another part of a corridor with all doors sealed shut and the flickering lights changed to a stable red colour, he realised that something was wrong. The expected attack did not come.

Yazoo got his answer to his silent wondering when the sirens changed the tone and the air vents sealed themselves shut. He remembered an overheard bit of a conversation that had filtered through the guard's earpieces during their previous fight. Gas was being filtered through built-in shafts; no soldiers were needed.

"Don't breathe," Yazoo growled at Loz, doubting that it would have any kind of effect. "Hold your breath and don't breathe until we get behind the next door." Even as he said this, he doubted that Loz would be able to do so in his current state; he had forgotten everything aside from the thrill of killing. And even if they got through this area, there was no saying if the next one wouldn't be the same. They made it to a cross section in the corridor and had to stop briefly to pick where to go next. This was a place they had never been to. Yazoo considered tehir options and noticed a partially open door on the right side corridor. The reason why it had not closed was somebody's corpse lying on the threshold. It was pressed to one side, squeezing the body. Yazoo heard Loz heaving a breath, as his older brother had decided that it was safe to breathe now, especially because the sound of fighting was coming from the other side of that door. Yazoo cursed silently and grabbed his arm, trying to pull him along before the gas took effect. Once they got through the door, the corridor was empty but for a few more corpses. Behind them, the door closed again, this time cutting the already mangled corpse in half and on the far end of the corridor they could see Kadaj fighting with several guards. Loz rushed forwards, forgetting that the gas was still there. His lungs burned with every breath that he took, but it suddenly did not matter to him at all. He had almost reached Kadaj, when the door slid shut and he crashed into it. Yazoo cursed low under his breath and rushed forward to open the door again, but the card didn't work. The door remained locked. Time was running out; Yazoo knew it. They were already feeling lightheaded, sick, and Loz already had blood dripping from his nose – thought that might have been a result of battle or his recent run-in with the door. At the back of his mind, the long-haired clone realised that the cards in his possession had been disabled, but he refused to accept this. He kept dragging the cards through the slot again and again, but the outcome was still the same. Loz snapped and remembering the gun in his possession, emptied it into the metal door. It was a miracle that none of the shots hit Yazoo, as his eyesight had gotten quite blurry by this point. One of the ricocheting bullets scratched Loz's upper arm, but he did not register it. Several flew close by Yazoo's head, but he was in no state to even try and dodge, too overtaken by the inability to proceed further.

The door gave, though from the inside, and a guard stumbled into the corridor, his throat slit and his fingers still clutching the code card that should have led to safety, but had not. Yazoo watched in fascination as the man collapsed right next to him, convulsing in his final moments of life. The clone lifted his gaze up and looked into the eyes of Kadaj who stood on the other side of the door, green eyes wide and barely focused and a blood-stained scalpel in his hand. He looked quite surprised at the open door and the sight of his brothers on the other side of the passageway. And in the next moment Yazoo had already pulled out a gun that had once belonged to a security guard and unloaded all of its content into the chest of the guard that decided to attack Kadaj now that his attention was directed elsewhere. The two brothers shared an odd smile that spoke volumes in a way only the two of them could understand.

"Let's go," Kadaj rasped, feeling the effects of the gas from the other corridor filtering in. Both Yazoo and Loz followed him without a question.

They could never rightfully remember just how exactly they got out of the laboratory and into the deserted countryside because everything had been a blur of motion, oncoming guards, barely holding on to consciousness, spilling blood, and slithering intestines. How they had gotten their weapons, nobody could tell. To the ones who looked at this horrible bloodshed from the safety of the higher levels with security cameras being their only connection to the warzone it seemed like their weapons had materialised out of thin air. One moment they had been empty-handed and the next… The next the video had disappeared.

They had stolen a truck from the backyard of the labs and Yazoo had driven them out of there. He had crashed through the gate and proceeded onwards through a deserted terrain. Rain had streaked against the windshield, rocks had barrelled against the bottom of the car, and the smashed headlights had been useless to help them along the pitch blackness. Yazoo's eyes, burning mako green, had been the only thing keeping them moving onwards and preventing the car from crashing.

He had never learned to drive; he just had a way with machinery.

Kadaj soon fell asleep in the seat next to him, his head resting on Yazoo's shoulder. Loz had been out cold for quite some time already, his head banging against the window every now and again when the car hit a bump in the road, and there were many because Yazoo was using no roads at all. He himself was barely holding on to consciousness, the adrenaline long since worn off and the last dregs of medication and the aftereffects of the supposedly debilitating experiments had taken their toll on him as well. All he could do right now was not crash and send them all to a burning death; not now when they were finally free.

The pursuit must have been quite fierce, but that night they encountered no one, save for a few wild animals that scattered in fear as soon as the car approached. And those who came after them later regretted ever knowing of their existence. Once the three of them had recovered enough, they returned to the laboratories to kill everyone in the facility, be it a guard, a doctor, or a fellow test subject. In the end, they razed the building complex to the ground and stood as close to it as it was possible, watching it burn and smoulder, thick and poisonous smoke rising high up in the air.

"No one. Ever," Kadaj whispered to the slow wind that carried the smoke slightly off to the east, and only Yazoo caught it, echoing his words in silence and knowing that this was only the beginning.


End file.
